Annual Forum Subscription.

[Admin]

The subcription will be used for two primary uses.

1. To help pay the ongoing annual costs of the forum, like ISP costs, domain registration and any expense for events attended by tthe  LBF.  (This does not include hotels & food, that is met out of our own pockets)


2. To administer/control access.  Historically we have had people make no contribution to the forum, either financially or by way of input or assistance to others and simply use the forum as a source of free advertising to a targetted database of Beta owners, once they have made their money they disappear. Or only want to take advantage of the technical information made available through this forum.

Important - Please Read[/b
]If we go subscription based, then the goal would be to only make certain "Boards" accessible via a subscription.  (Downloads & For Sale would be two examples, possibly more. So you have a choice, if you don't want to subscribe or you don't need to sell anything then we are not forcing you to pay.

It will make administration of the forum easier.  If we see people posting items for sale outside of the "For Sale" section then the post will be deleted immediately.

The majority of the forum would still be publically viewable, just we need to find a better way to ensure that the forum is not just "used & abused" as it does become tiresome when all the support is done on a volunteer basis but some people just want to take advantage for nothing more than  personal gain.

[Hawk]

My opinion (and I'm speaking wholly for myself) is that not having access to a downloads section or for sale section probably isn't enough of an incentive. 

For me, the real benefit of this site is the advice and guidance - and that would remain free? 

I think you would be better limiting access to maybe a general discussion section (or beta talk?).


Whatever you do, I am happy paying £10 a year
 

[MattNoVAT]

What needs to be confirmed amongst the admins is whether the "Technical Stuff" board is also restricted to a "subscribed user". 

This is where most of the fixes and technical advice posts are located - but these things are never the decision of a single person, we have to operate democratically and try to ensure that we go with the majority but not exclude potential new members.

It's a fine balance.

[rossocorsa]

I'm happy to contribute not too bothered to get too many extras but I think is is a good idea to restrict certain areas to subscribers only, I think the basics should remain open access though including the basic technical help section

[peteracs]

On the subject of For Sale, I was originally in two minds about needing to subscribe to list items, given that some members might benefit from the parts being offered. However given the low cost of subscription likely, it makes sense to ask for that from any seller, afterall just as cheap as Ebay etc and far more targetted.

The question in my mind is, are only those who subscribe able to view the items for sale, or can there be a time window before the items are available for non subscribers to view the items?

I think this time limit way is the LMC policy from memory. No idea if practical to implement on the forum software however.

Peter

[rossocorsa]

I think it may be best if small one off posts of parts can be made FOC, but breaking, trade or cars should be members or a small fee for outsiders. One thing that we really need to avoid is the vintage crowd looking to buy restorable volumexes and scrapping them for the supercharger  so possibly cars for sale should be visible to full members only ()

[MattNoVAT]

Alan, 

While I agree that it would be nice if we could allow small/one off posts or a small fee for non-subscribed members the reality is that it would take considerable effort to manage and track that kind of detail.  I've not yet seen any off  the shelf software for SMF that comes anywhere close to what you've been suggested, so it would need bespoke coding. 

So I personally, do not think it would be practical to aim for that level of granular control.

[rossocorsa]

Two separate sections one for complete cars , breaking for spares etc and another for small items of spares ?

[rossocorsa]

Thinking about it a bit  the forum doesn't want to lose it's generally informal friendly nature so perhaps it's best not to over complicate things

[MattNoVAT]

I do want to get into trying to create a Utopian solution, when its simply too complex to do so.  If we can get a good balance and the vast majority of members are happy with the end results then thats a satisfactory result as far as I am concerned.  Trying to think of every concievable option and then cater for it is not going to work in my opinion.

[peteracs]

I am sort of starting to feel a bit guilty now as I started this ball rolling and not sure if it needed to be started at all now. If the donate key had of worked I probably would have not said anything.......

I know we have had the poll and most folk who bothered to vote said ok to subs, but might it make life simpler for you admins to keep things much as they are given that it appears to work (aside from spammer regs) as far I know and make the donations a sort of informal donation with a yearly reminder?

Peter

[rossocorsa]

Well I still think it would be no bad thing to have a annual small membership with access to downloads

[MattNoVAT]

This ball would have started regardless of your prompt Peter, the forum has evolved over the past few years and it does need to keep up with the times.

We want to retain all the good bits but place a small amount of control around some aspects to ensure its future and that it remains as open and friendly as possible.  As Admins, we don't want to run a "nanny state" but we do need to keep the rules fair, simple and easy to manage.



Speaking personally now, if I have to spend all of my time simply monitoring and administering rather than actually working on betas, finding parts or helping out at any LBF events it could become a bit of a chore and less fun. So, by putting a few basic rules in place the admin overhead is reduced, then I & the others can spend more time contributing more Beta related assistance or finding alternate parts etc. which, I think is the main purpose of this very forum.

[thecolonel]

Most of you will know that I am a Gamma man and
haven't had a Beta since about 2002, still I would be
Happy to pay a small subscription to support the
forum.

Geoff

[droptop]

I did not know that!
Your knowledge of Betas has saved my ass on a couple of occasions so make sure to stick with this forum even if you buy a Prius. (Just don't post anything about it)

[carbobkocher]

Make it simple, have all viewers/members pay a fee. new members could have a 30 day trail to see if they think it worth paying for.

This would make it no big deal! after there is much information on forum for all!   I would be happy to pay whatever. I learn much by going from page to page.

Bob Kocher

[MattNoVAT]

I met with Tony yesterday to discuss the outline steps given that the majority of voters are happy with a £10 per annum subscription to access the technical section, downloads and for sale section.

Here is what we discussed/agreed:

Subscription will be £10 a year, this equates to £0.83 a month. Or $1.35 USD /  AUD $1.29   / 1.02 Euro (Rates as at today 21/12/2012)

Subscription will not start until July 2013.  This is because we want to avoid extra expense during Christmas/New year period and it gives us 6 months to prepare.  You are not obliged to pay the subscription if you do not want to, its freedom of choice.

There will be a "Free to Collector" section that is available to all subscribed/unsubscribed forum users if there are Beta parts that are being given away.  Adverts for any items being "sold" will be removed by the Admins if posted in the "Free to Collector".

[rodney3010]

Good result, gets my support
Rodders

[rossocorsa]

by all means take a bit of time to set it up properly but I can't see anyone being so overspent that they can't lash out an extra tenner at Christmas!! Glad to pay the sub whenever you want to start as hopefully it will take some pressure off your backs and fund improvements too.

[peteracs]

+1

Any idea when the donate button code will be updated as still cannot get it to work on anything I seem to try?

Peter